Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - They came for abortion rights, now they're coming for gay rights

Complaining about a group losing its way and calling them on the carpet for it isn't quite the same as bashing.
An increasing percentage of Christians have decided to weaponize their faith in ways that mirror their weaponized counterparts in the other two Great Abrahamic Faiths.
I can't speak for anyone else, but it has become so awful that I find myself almost shocked when I encounter stories about Christians who conduct themselves in a truly Christlike manner, like Jimmy Carter.
I realize that there's lots of Christians who don't use their faith as a bludgeon, but guess which group has the money, the bully pulpit and the taxpayer contributions?
It's not Jimmy Carter's bunch.

I can't say that I'm an atheist but one of my favorite lines came from a friend who said "I don't believe in organized religion but as I understand it, neither does God."

I think Kate Cohen has the right idea:
If they’re going to keep passing religious laws, we’re going to need exemptions

"If they’re going to be making these laws, and the Supreme Court is going to let them, then the rest of us should be able to opt out."

Authoritarians like to carve out groups they feel are unworthy of constitutional rights.

Groups they claim their god doesn't like. Blacks, Jews, women, socialists, queers, immigrants, muslims...

You know, the regular suspects.

Non-whites and non-conformists.

Eventually they will "carve out" way more than they can chew.
Not only are they attempting to make abortion a crime again, they also attacked contraception, and now "teh ga-heyz".

I'm of the opinion that's three out of three too many, and certainly two out of three too many...you can't make unwilling mothers, hetero people who like sex AND gay people angry at you in 2021 America all at the same time and get away with it.

Guys (ie not responding specifically to Greger,). my conscience is niggling me and I have to speak up.

I have been an atheist for about forty years and I am uncomfortable in just about every religious setting from baptism to funerals.

But I see an awful lot of Christian-bashing on this site that has no subdivision at all - you’re painting all Christians with the same brush.

I’m not a Christianity fan myself, and I find expressions of that faith to be tiresome at best, ugly at worst. But you can’t put all Christians in the same bucket, any more than you can Muslims or Jews.

I understand the disdain for Christians, I really do. But if you referred to other social groups the way you refer to Christians it wouldn’t be accepted, and I don’t think it should be accepted in this case either.

I am generally a "live and let live" kinda guy. That applies to religion, sex, and most other things. Where I begin to draw lines is when someone seeks to impose their values onto others. Yes, to a certain extent, public policy is based upon values (frankly, far too little of it), but I'm talking about essentially punishing people for holding other beliefs. The minority imposing its positions on the majority (e.g., on abortion, or private school vouchers).

The current majority of the Supreme Court clearly does not hold the values that the majority of Americans do. They are imposing, in my opinion, lawlessly, their values - not legal, but social and political - onto the public and using their undemocratic authority to do so. It's disturbing to me, because I revere the Constitution and the rule of law and they are trampling on those values.

In my defense of "Christian-bashing" - Christians are the only ones coming for ME and it is relentless and on a daily basis - not Muslims or Jews. So eff them.

"What we got here is failure to communicate..."

Which is an underlying ubiquitous factor in human existence.

It's problematic to talk in generalities when, depending on the fineness of the subject granularity, there can never be enough nuance. I claim that one of the major differences between Liberals and Conservatives, in general, has to do with a willingness to consider nuance - Libs do it more (often to the point of creating confusion and difficult to understand positions), and Cons do it less (to the point of oversimplification and true bigotry). It's kind if a mess.

With that in mind, here's a parable that may shed some light on this particular subject of painting all Christians with one broad brush (a nod to Greger for already creating a link to the batsh!t crazy notion).

I admit that I was raised in a culture that can easily be categorized as "Christian", even though in all of my memory I have been seriously disinclined to that group, or to any religion. I can't speak definitively about my thoughts on the matter before age six or so, but around that time I know that I was conscious that the stories of Christianity were seriously suspect for truthfulness and credibility, and I sensed the cultish atmosphere around the whole scene.

There is another side to it, though, that relates to being a good and moral person - but I have never thought that being such a person depended at all upon following a religion. It wasn't too long ago when I realized that the cornerstone of being a good person, the Golden Rule, isn't the first of the Ten Commandments - hell, it's not even on the list fer Chrissakes! There are lots of writings, teachings, and just life experience where a person can learn how important the Golden Rule is - it has almost zero provenance in Christianity or the Bible, or any other of the major religions.

From this I feel comfortable in stating that there is essentially no redeeming value in religion, and that the believers in the Word of religion are delusional, even if good and benign - in the vernacular, they are batsh!t crazy (in varying degrees). In case I'm missing something, I'm open to hearing evidence that a person might be benefitting from being a Christian believer to any noticeable degree over what a nice, thoughtful, non-believer might achieve.

"RELIGION! Hunh! Good Gawd, yaw, what is it good for? Absolutely nuttin!"

I meant that if you are loving your neighbor as yourself, and your neighbor is loving you as himself, then effectively you have the Golden Rule at it's best.

Of course, Jesus said "Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." So that covers the situation where your neighbor is an a-hole. He's obviously not following the Golden Rule, but you are.

Religion is mostly silly, but I sometimes think we would be better off if more Americans actually feared going to Hell for their misdeeds. Some of us are evolved enough not to need Jesus watching us to do the right thing. Obviously, some are not.

I admit my last post kinda came in at an odd angle. My point, presumably (;)), was that the whole approach of the Republobates is trying to "solve" an issue that isn't really capable of resolution by the means attempted, and the basis is antiquated. It applies to many of the "traditional" views on a lot of subjects (procreation and sexuality paramount among them).

Humanity has evolved over the last few hundred years, and society has advanced in understanding, but the Troglorepublican party and its fellow travelers haven't. You can take just about any socially or politically current issue and they don't have a clear understanding or approach to any of it - economics, science, climate, manufacturing, society - in every instance their approaches are out of line with contemporary understanding.

I have no truck with conservatism any more. It is an antiquated, ersatz approach to living that isn't even based in reality.